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Session 1 - In the Beginning
Full Circle opening plays and it fades into Paw. The text "Starring: Your self-appointed authority: '''Paw'" is in the lower left. Lemon's "Hell Yeah" plays in the background''. Paw: 'Hello, and welcome to the premiere of Full Circle. Now as with all things, one form of art can lead to another. So what we're subjected to in childhood affects us in adult life, like it or not. Now as a hopeless music nerd, I'm gonna go on this little journey of discovery...''and you're all coming with me! Scene transitions to next. 'Paw: '''From the earliest childhood memories, through the 80s, through the 90s, all the way up to present day, we'll see what influenced me and turned me into the person you see before you today. ''Scene transitions to next. 'Paw: '''From 80s New Wave or Pop or Ska, Grunge, Punk, Hip Hop, Electro and all the crap in between, I've been through it all. ''Scene transitions to next. 'Paw: '''Now if I start from day 1, that'll be like 1979 and I was a new-born so we'll fast forward a bit for brevity's sake. Infants have a lousy taste in music anyway. Now it all starts around 1983 or so... ''Squiggly lines transitions the scene to a picture of Paw's house (probably). Zooms into a second floor window. '' '''Paw: '''And here's where I spent all those formative years right up there. Usin' this. ''Fades into his record player. 'Paw: '''Yup, it's a good ol' Fisher Price My First ''frickin' ''Record Player. It was beige and orange and had one speaker which gives just a good as sound quality as the cordless phones of the era and that's giving it a lot of credit. ''Fades back to Paw then fades to his dad's collection 'Paw: '''The adventure truly began when I somehow ended up with my dad's old collection of 45 singles. Mixed in with these singles are the songs which will become some of my all time favorites. As well as some of those songs which you look back on with a certain ''grim nostalgia and a few of those guilty pleasures that you'll never ever admit to. But I will. Oh yes... Fades into Tears for Fears' "Shout". 'Paw: '(voiceover) Now, you probably recognize this song before it even starts. The first record I spun until the grooves wore out. One of my very first musical memories. I remember being oddly hypnotized by the almost ethereal quality of this song. It's just one big primal scream of a tune. Not that I knew what any of this meant as a 5-year old but one tends to pick up a larger vocabulary in 20 years so, bear with me as a bear my rose-tinted glasses. The repetitive nature of the lyrics made it easy for me to latch onto and sing throughout the house and the drum beats, they were catchy enough, but there was something else about this song. Something near intangible, something epic. Fades into the infomercial 'Paw: '(voiceover) I don't remember the video much save for snippets seen on these god-awful 80s mix tape collections from the late night infomercial. And I can't say I missed much, being deprived of MTV at an early age. ''Fades into Michael Jackson's '"Bad"'' 'Paw: '(voiceover) Now you know he had to be in here somewhere and don't worry, I don't have any Michael Jackson jokes. Fades into the album cover and fades back to music video after the next line. 'Paw: '(voiceover) Jackson's Bad or at least somewhere close by its peak at this point and I had this entire album as a kid. '''Paw: (voiceover) And I remember blasting this song out the window because of how utterly cool it made me. Face it, this was as cool as you can possibly become before imploding in upon yourself since the laws of the universe cannot possibly allow something this awesome to exist...in the 80s at least. I'm still not sure why this song stands out in my mind so vividly but I'm pretty sure it's that bass line. It introduces the song and carries it all the way through to the end. Most likely also because it's one of the defining songs of the era, like it or not. Fades to MJ moonwalking on roller skates. Paw: '(voiceover) Moonwalking on roller skates? Pure unadultared awesomeness. ''Clip ends and fades back to Paw. 'Paw: '''You are Michael! You are! ''Fades into Newcleus' Jam On It 'Paw: '(voiceover) Now here's another one of those song-carrying bass lines I love so much. Now I remember this song for stupid, child-like reasons. First and foremost because I heard "Jam on it" as "Jamoney" Picture of Jamoney gets bigger and bigger from the lower right part of the screen. 'Paw: '(voiceover) Which to me sounded like a cross between processed meat and spreadable desserts. Now breakdancing was the newest big thing and a lot of songs about it and for it. But for me, "Jam on It" was the penultimate breakdancing song. Back in the day, me and my friends would just do our best to impersonate breakdancing moves we see people do on TV and I even had step-by-step diagrams of the dance steps that we could never quite pull off. We would have little breakdancing parties after school and this one was always top on the rotation. Fades to Limahl's "Neverending Story" 'Paw: '(voiceover) Ah, the immortal! Uh, the movie, not the singer. The theme song to the greatest 80s movie ever made. Every kid saw this movie and made a damn song a guilty pleasure later on in life. It took every ounce of my willpower to even admit this was an influential song to me. These damn New Wave roots of mine comin' back to bite me in the ass. Paw appears in the lower-right corner of the screen while the singer of Neverending Story is shown 'Paw: '''Now what I love the most about this song i-wait a sec...who is this guy? Doesn't a woman sing this song? A guy!? A guy sings this song!? ''Back to the music video 'Paw: '(voiceover) Yeah it took me by surprise too. This is Limahl, one of the gayer members of Project Googoo. He did write the song and sings it, and it really blows my mind that seriously for 20 years I thought a girl sang this song...sorry, that's all I got. Doesn't even look like a guy... Back to Paw 'Paw: '''Now my parents had just as much an influence on me as my inherited record collection did. Let's start with my dad. A real child of the 60s. Fan of Prog. Rock, Psychedilia and New Wave. A lot of the songs he used to play back then, I still have the albums for it today. Here's a good one. ''Fades to The Strangers' "Ice Queen" 'Paw: '(voiceover) One of the very first artists I remember latching on to that dad would play often were "The Stranglers". Mainly the album Aural Sculpture. I think it's the only album of theirs that he owns. Now most of these songs are remembered for their slow grooves and groaning organ plus Hugh Cornwell's crooning was hypnotic. My favorite song was always this one called "Ice Queen" mainly about a card game played with the titular frozen monarch and not just because it's a great tune, Back to Paw 'Paw: '''but because of the chorus, "I knew the Ice Queen" was heard in my little mind as "I need the ice cream". ''Fades back to video while "I need the ice cream" is flashed at the bottom 'Paw: '(voiceover) So naturally, this became my personal anthem whenever Ice cream entered my mind which was quite often. And it would often be belted out after family dinners meeting with mixed results. I still think of this song whenever I drive by a basket of Robinsons. Fades to Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio" 'Paw: '(voiceover) Now this is still known everywhere as one of the most bizzare and catchy tunes ever written. Wall of Voodoo made everyone curious about what barbecued iguana really tastes like south of the border. Mexican radio is one of those songs that will burrow its way into your skull and most likely keep you wake at night. Let's the song play for a while 'Paw: '(voiceover) Now I can't tell you any other song this group has ever done, ever. Nor do I even know the name of the album it came from until today. Hell I can barely even remember the name of the band itself but everyone knows Mexican Radio whether you knew 'em or not. Now this song was perfect for my age and since it was so off the wall and catchy, it stuck with me until today. Most likely until I die... Back to Paw 'Paw: '''Now as far as the matriarch of the family, her tastes were...''different. As a religious woman, she felt it her duty to subject me to nothing but Christian Rock and other soft stuff. She was more of the tree-hugging, peace-loving type back in the 70s and this gentle sensibility led her well into the 80s so it seems. Scene transitions to next '''Paw: '''Now bear in mind that some of these songs coming up can be a little...wussy, but like them or not, they influenced me one way or another. So steel yourself, it's gonna get rough. ''Fades to Amy Grant's "Every Heartbeat" and fades back to Paw' then back to the video.''' '''Paw: '''Aw, no! Amy Grant? I thought I left her way back in the past. '''Paw: '(voiceover) Whenever mom wrested the control of the stereo away from dad and I, she would quickly but this album on. It's so sacrine and sweet and bubble-gummy that I still feel nauseous hearing it. Well for the sake of nostalgia, let's give it another shot. Lets the song play for a while. Constantly shifts between the music video and Paw rolling his eyes. He eventually spazzes out and the song 'Paw: '''Nope, can't do it, ''stop. God, she still may be the reigning queen of god-rock but man this puts me in the mood for some regicide...it probably explains why I'm such a heathen these days... Fades to Tanita Tikaram's "Twist in My Sobriety/Poor Cow." Fades to her album and goes back to video. 'Paw: '(voiceover) Well, it wasn't all bad. She was also a fan Tanita Tikaram. A 19-year old Malaysian-Indo-Fijian-British prodigy mainly known for "Twist in My Sobriety" which in it of itself wasn't such a bad little song. Kind of a depressing and pretentious song for a 19-year old but still not bad. That oboe in the background caught my attention and that slow down-to-a-crawl driving beat made this song pretty successful. But it's not this song I remember her for. But rather this quirky little ditty about eviscerating cattle. Poor Cow plays 'Paw: '(voiceover) Jaunting, isn't it? I would play this in many places which would cause many people to think I was a very dark and twisted little lad. Back to Paw 'Paw: '''Alright, that's enough of this, parental influence stuff. This is all about me. ''Me. Fades to The Jets' "Crush on You" 'Paw: '(voiceover) Alright, here's another skull-burrowing song. I heard this song over and over again on a walkman on a long driving vacation out west, heading toward big and bad Texas. It's not like a like this kind of bubble-gum pop, it was all there was! It was this or listen to dad describe every passing cactus or mom complain every time she saw a sign stating our destination was still 350 miles away. So like it or not, this song is a part of me. I blame this song every time I start listening to and actually liking any bad 80s music. This song breaks every one of my karma music rules but being a childhood memory it can never be erased. So, I've learned to embrace it. Fades to Men at Work's "Be Good, Johnny". Fades into album cover and back to the video. 'Paw: '(voiceover) This is it. My ultimate 80s influence, Men at Work. I can't even listen to it now without being excited. It's everything I loved about music back then. Most of all because of this chorus. Let's song play for a while. '' '''Paw: '(voiceover) But this is not why it's my favorite 80s song of all time. Back to Paw 'Paw: '''It's all because of my childlike misunderstanding of the lyrics. Sing along! ''Fades back to the video. Now with karaoke style lyrics saying "Pika pika". Pikachu acts as the jumping ball 'Paw: '(voiceover) So as a consequence, this song will always be known in the family as "Pika pika" Back to Paw 'Paw: '''So that should do it on my earliest childhood memories. In a nutshell, I grew up on New Wave and soft melodies. ''Transitions to next scene 'Paw: '''So join us next session when we move into the ''hard ''things, high school. When grunge ruled the world in a little podunk high school in the middle of nowhere. I entered high school basically as a clean slate and man how things change quickly. So witness my change from an impressionable youth to a..not..quite as impressionable of a youth. And much more jaded youth! In the span of one freshman year. Impressive no? ''Fades into credits. '' ''Ending Gag: Pikachu saying "Pika" Category:Content Category:Guides